


Situation Normal (All Fucked Up)

by miscellea



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alec means well, F/M, Kid Fic, Pre-Andromeda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 17:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10621653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellea/pseuds/miscellea
Summary: Ellen’s bags are packed and there’s a shuttle waiting on her, but she lingers in the passenger lounge to go over the schedule with Alec one more time.“Breakfast at 0700, school by 0800, after school activities until 1700, dinner at 1800, no dessert without evidence of completed homework, bed at 1900.” He repeats faithfully. “Baths every night, but three times a week is within acceptable tolerances. If they fight lock them in a room until it’s over or one is dead.”“You’re going to be fine, Alec.” Ellen presses a kiss to his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into it.“I’m going to be fine, Ellen.” He lies.His kids are the best thing that ever happened to him after his wife, but they’re also tiny hostile aliens who can smell weakness. He’s not going to be fine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My person head canon for Alec Ryder is that beneath his cool exterior beats the heart of an easily panicked computer nerd with a boatload of feels he's inept at expressing and a talent for mayhem.
> 
> In this fic he's been left unsupervised with two kids who are just like him.

Ellen’s bags are packed and there’s a shuttle waiting on her, but she lingers in the passenger lounge to go over the schedule with Alec one more time.

“Breakfast at 0700, school by 0800, after school activities until 1700, dinner at 1800, no dessert without evidence of completed homework, bed at 1900.” He repeats faithfully. “Baths every night, but three times a week is within acceptable tolerances. If they fight lock them in a room until it’s over or one is dead.”

“You’re going to be fine, Alec.” Ellen presses a kiss to his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into it. 

“I’m going to be fine, Ellen.” He lies.

His kids are the best thing that ever happened to him after his wife, but they’re also tiny hostile aliens who can smell weakness. He’s _not_ going to be fine.

 

* * *

  

Evet Kandera (age: six hundred and eight, occupation; environmental engineer and PTA volunteer) is leading the ‘carpool’ today and she arrives at Alec’s flat on the Presidium about the same time he does. The tiny Asari lady is surrounded by a small multispecies cloud of children, two of which belong to him.

Scott and Sara walk hand-in-hand a little bit separate from the rest of the group. They’re the only human kids at their school and their fitness reports say they’re fitting in well, but Alec thinks the fitness reports are lying.

“Mister Ryder!” Evet practically sparkles at him. He knows that most Asari social interaction reads as flirtation to anyone who isn’t an Asari. That doesn’t stop him from feeling like she’s eying him up a prime cut of steak whenever they encounter each other. He doesn’t consider himself attractive so he’s got no idea why she’s bothering him. Usually he can run unwanted attention off just fine by being himself, but Evet’s been undeterred so far. Ellen thinks it’s hysterical. “It’s been a while.”

“Yes.” Alec replies and points to spot at his feet. “Ryders. Over here.”

Evet blinks as Scott and Sara trot over to their mark, but recovers her poise. “You have to tell me your secret. Savet looks at me like I’m insane when I try something like that.”

According to Ellen, Savet would fight you if you told her the sky was blue. He decides he’s had enough conversation and just says, “Good evening” before leading his kids into the house. The last thing he sees is a sliver of her startled face as the doors close. “Go change. You’ve got until dinnertime to do homework.”

The kids trundle off and Alec breathes a sigh of relief. He figures he’s got a day or so before their need to test him overwhelms their habit of obedience. The kids do their homework in the kitchen and Alec noodles around with his datapad to make sure they’re actually _doing_ it.

Sara finishes first and vanishes into her room to play. There’s nothing sharp or flammable in there that Alec knows about so he allows it. Scott finishes after and gets to play his hologame, which is randomly about the Turian equivalent of football.

Dinner is canned soup and saltines. Sara makes an A+ effort to convince him that bathing every night interferes with your immune system and backs it up with a questionable website she found on the extranet. Alec’s impressed that his seven-year-old does a better job of supporting her arguments than most politicians he’s met who just make shit up wholesale, but he hates rewarding sloppy scholarship.

“Appeal denied, kid.” He says and dumps her in the tub with her brother. “Try again tomorrow night and cite your sources. I want to see at least one scholarly article.”

Sara glares at him as if to say ‘you’re on, buddy’ and allows herself to be scrubbed. The kids are technically old enough to bathe alone, but not old enough to be relied on to use soap.

Things start to go off the rails after bath time. He takes his eyes off Scott for two minutes while he dries Sara off and the kid vanishes. Alec can’t find him anywhere in the bathroom and when he asks Sara where her brother went, she just blinks her big brown eyes at him like ‘Scott who?’

Alec finds Scott butt naked and crammed into an air vent. Fortunately, there is a grate in place to stop him from going too far, but there used to be a grate keeping him from getting _in_ to begin with. Alec tucks his son under one arm and goes to find his daughter, who has dressed herself entirely in mismatched neons and tulle while he was gone. Those aren’t pajamas, but Alec has a suspicion that parenting is all about picking which hill you want to die on. He decides he doesn’t want to die on the hill of making Sara change into a nightgown.

Bedtimes does not happen on schedule. He has no idea how they aren’t tired after their bath time shenanigans, but they both get up at least twice before falling asleep well past their target of 1800. Sara requires a glass of water and then an escort to the toilet half an hour later. Scott doesn’t really think there’s a monster in his closet, but he likes making Alec check to make sure.

Alec falls into his own cold, empty bed somewhere around 0100 having stayed up too late to catch up on all the stuff he couldn’t do while the monsters were on alert.

He wakes up around 0300 when a little warm body crawls into bed with him and falls asleep sprawled horizontally across his back. Another little body -slightly cooler- appears and wedges itself under his arm.

Alec startles awake around 0600 to the realization that his kids should probably be at around the same temperature. Sure enough, Sara (who is the one laying across his back like a tiny sad throw pillow) is running a temperature and does _not_ want to be put in a lukewarm shower while her dad takes a moment to panic in the hallway.

He’s been alone with them for less than twenty-four hours and he _already broke one_. Ellen will kill him. Worse, she’ll _leave_ him and he still needs to get Scott ready for school.

Sara refuses to be put in her own bed so Alec puts her in his and wads a blanket up around her. It takes a box of juice and a stuffed bunny he hadn’t realized she still likes before her eyes droop and he feels okay leaving her alone for twenty minutes while he manhandles Scott into something resembling a coordinated outfit.

Evet shows up to collect the kids right on time, which is bad because Scott got up in the night to hide one half of every pair of shoes he owns. It’s also bad because Alec knows it’s not her day to chaperone the kids to school. She must have swapped days with someone and he does not have time for this.

She blinks when Alec answers the door with Scott under one arm wearing two mismatched sneakers.

“Is everything okay, Alec?” She squeaks. Alec has no idea when they ended up on a first-name basis.

“Yes.” He replies and sets Scott down in front of her. “Sara’s sick today.”

“Aw, poor kiddo. All the other levo kids were down with a virus last week. Ellen thought she’d managed to dodge the bullet. Well, good luck. At least you’ve already dealt with it once before!” Evet waves and herds the kids off.

Last week, Alec had been in round-the-clock talks regarding Batarian raids on human colonies in the Terminus. Ellen had not breathed a word to him about either of the kids getting sick. Also, a week seems like a significant incubation period for a virus considering Sara and Scott were probably exposed to it around the same time.

Alec calls in a favor from one of his buddies who’s rated for field medicine and gets him to come over and assure Alec his daughter isn’t dying.

Paul laughs in his face when Alec answers the door. “Holy shit, Alec. It’s been a little over a _day_. You look like hell, man.”

“Ha ha.” Alec grumbled and steals a look in the nearest reflective surface. Oh. He hasn’t combed his hair yet or changed out of yesterday’s gear. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate either. He fed the kids last night and this morning, but he can’t remember making food for himself either time. Oops.

Paul snaps a picture of him without permission. “I’m sending this to Ellen.” He says. “She needs to know how bad this is.”

“Ellen will just be happy nothing’s on fire.” Alec shoves Paul in the direction of the bedroom.

Sara has withdrawn entirely into her blanket nest and glares feebly when Alec excavates her. She allows herself to be picked up and turns her hot face into the hollow of Alec’s neck. It’s eerily reminiscent of when she was a baby and had no idea her dad didn’t know how to be a person. He misses the days when all his kids needed from him was food and a clean diaper. He misses being able to put them in a laundry hamper under his desk while he works. Everything went downhill after they learned to walk and Alec regrets ever teaching them.

Paul’s omnitool makes a fake shutter noise as he takes a picture. Alec gives him a look that once made a pirate wet himself. Paul grins and takes another picture.

“You are so out of your depth. It’s amazing.” Paul jerks his head towards the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s get your girl checked out.”

Sara submits to the examination, although Alec has no doubt she’s going to get him back later. Paul loses his attitude fast enough that Alec gets worried.

“I don’t think it’s a virus, Alec.” Paul says as he packs his kit back up. “She doesn’t have any symptoms other than the fever and lethargy. Keep an eye on that temperature. Give her some anti-inflammatories and if she gets any hotter I want you to take her to the nearest Asari clinic.”

“You think she’s manifesting?” Alec considers the idea. It’s possible. The twins were exposed to eezo in utero, but it’s early. Then again, they’ve only got a few years’ worth of case studies on human biotics –and very few of those are recent after the shit-show at Jump Zero. Three things happen to biotic human kids now; they suffer in quiet until they can enlist, their parents hire private tutors, or they vanish.

Alec’s arms tighten around his daughter.

“It’s a strong possibility.” Paul produces a candy from his pocket and offers it to Sara, who looks at the linty wrapper and scorns it. “That’s your kid all right, Alec.”

“Of course she is.” Alec had not realized the matter was up for debate. “We look exactly alike.”

“Not what I meant.” Paul puts the candy back in his pocket. “Keep me updated, okay? And call Ellen. She’ll want scans.”

Ellen is testifying at Arcturus with a couple of terabytes worth of evidence that she told her former employers over and over again that the L2 implant was not ready for deployment. Alec is not bothering her for anything less than a missing limb.

There’s a couch in his study that makes a decent nest. Sara accepts her tribute of juice, blanket, plush animal, and a kid-friendly datapad her brother hasn’t managed to jailbreak yet. Alec gets some work done until Paul mails him a copy of the pictures he took. The last one is of Alec and Sara glaring at him with almost identical expressions.

“Shit.” Alec mutters and then looks guiltily in the direction of his daughter, who’s absorbed in a vid. He realizes that he recognizes the look of hyper-concentration on her face; that’s all Ellen. The poor kid got his attitude, Ellen’s focus, and maybe also biotics. He can see her future rolling out in front of him like a carpet and unless the world changes a lot in the next few years, she’s probably going into some variant of the military. He’d already known Scott was headed for the Alliance; the kid was _very_ clear about what he wanted to be when he grew up.

‘Shooting lessons.’ he notes to himself, thinking of all the areas in which he’s found the average Alliance recruit to be deficient. ‘EVA conditioning and maybe gymnastics.’

This time he’s ready when Scott gets home. Sara’s blanket cocoon’s been transferred to the couch and he’s put patch on her forehead that he synced to his omnitool and feeds him real time temperature data. So far the fever’s staying out of the danger zone, but it’s not going down either.

Scott’s subdued when Alec lets him into the apartment. He immediately gravitates towards his sister, crawls into the blankets with her, and starts a vid on his datapad. It doesn’t look like he’s sick too, but there aren’t any other human kids at school. He was probably lonely. Ellen would know how to talk to him about it. Alec gives him a juice box and hopes that’s good enough.

Dinner is delivery noodles. Alec hasn’t had much luck getting solid food into Sara, but Asari cuisine is mostly sea vegetables so there should be enough macronutrients in the broth to tide her over. Scott cheers up over the prospect of having something he can slurp noisily without penalty and Alec calls it a win until he finds a passive aggressive note in his inbox from Sara’s teacher.

… _right_. You’re supposed to call the school when you keep a kid home.

Alec replies with something suitably contrite and lets them know Sara will be back in school when he’s certain her brain won’t boil inside her skull.

The kids return to their quiet puppy pile after dinner. Alec’s omnitool pings to let him know Sara’s temperature is climbing, but he discovers it’s a false reading when he skids to a halt by the couch and observes his son’s glassy-eyed expression. He applies a second patch to Scott and recalibrates the program to account for two little overheated bodies in close proximity. Then he gives in and calls Ellen.


End file.
